The ever-growing popularity of eCommerce has opened up a world of possibilities for businesses, offering unparalleled reach and access to a wider customer base. However, with great opportunity comes great challenges.
As the competition in the eCommerce space intensifies, one of the biggest challenges businesses face is categorizing their products in a way that helps customers easily find what they’re looking for.
This is where the power of eCommerce Product taxonomy lies – it’s all about creating a roadmap that guides customers to the products they want to buy and improves their shopping experience.
In this guide, we will delve into the basics of eCommerce product taxonomy. We’ll explore what it is, how it works, and why it’s essential for any online store.
eCommerce Product Taxonomy: A Brief Explanation With Examples
Product taxonomy is a way of organizing products into specific categories and subcategories based on their attributes and characteristics. This system makes it easier for customers to navigate an online store and find what they’re looking for.
An effective product taxonomy is designed with the customer in mind, creating a hierarchy of categories and subcategories that reflect the way customers think about products.
For example, if you’re shopping for shoes on an eCommerce website, the product taxonomy may include categories such as “Men’s Shoes,” “Women’s Shoes,” “Athletic Shoes,” “Boots,” and so on.
Within each category, there may be subcategories, such as “Running Shoes,” “Hiking Boots,” “High Heels,” or “Sandals.”
By organizing products in this way, customers can quickly and easily find the type of shoe they’re looking for. This makes the shopping experience more efficient and enjoyable, which can lead to increased sales and customer loyalty.
What Are the Benefits of an eCommerce Product’s Taxonomy?
Here are the top six benefits of product taxonomy for eCommerce websites.
Improved User Experience
A well-designed taxonomy can significantly improve the user experience of an online store. By categorizing products in a clear and intuitive way, customers can easily find what they’re looking for without having to spend a lot of time searching. This can lead to higher customer satisfaction, increased engagement, and ultimately, more sales.
Better Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Search engines like Google use product taxonomies to understand the content of an eCommerce website. By creating a clear and comprehensive taxonomy, businesses can make it easier for search engines to understand their products and improve their search engine rankings. This can lead to more organic traffic to the website, resulting in more potential customers.
Increased Customer Loyalty
When you make it easier for customers to find what they’re looking for, they are more likely to return to the store in the future. Additionally, a taxonomy that is constantly updated and maintained can help businesses stay relevant and up-to-date with changing customer needs. All this can improve customer loyalty and increase repeat purchases.
Streamlined Inventory Management
Product taxonomy can also help businesses streamline their inventory management. By categorizing products, businesses can easily track which products are popular and which ones are not, enabling them to make informed decisions about what to stock and when. This can reduce inventory costs, minimize waste, and increase overall efficiency.
Improved Product Discoverability
There are many products listed on a website that customers are unaware of. When you categorize products into specific categories and subcategories, it helps customers discover these products that they may not have otherwise noticed. This can lead to increased sales and a wider customer base for the business.
Reduced Customer Support Costs
A clear and intuitive taxonomy helps the customer to find whatever they are looking for by themselves. This helps the business to minimize the need for and reduce associated costs. This can result in more efficient operations and a higher profit margin.
Different Types of eCommerce Product Taxonomy
Here are some different types of product taxonomy that eCommerce use to categorize its product.
Hierarchical Taxonomy
This is the most common type of product taxonomy, where products are organized in a hierarchical structure with categories and subcategories.
For example, a fashion retailer might organize its products in the following hierarchy: Women’s > Clothing > Dresses > Casual Dresses. This taxonomy allows customers to navigate the store and find products by browsing through the categories.
Faceted Taxonomy
Faceted taxonomy organizes products based on specific attributes or facets such as price range, color, size, or material. For instance, a furniture seller might allow customers to filter their search results based on attributes like style, color, size, material, and price.
This taxonomy makes it easier for customers to find the products they are looking for by narrowing down the options to their specific needs.
Network Taxonomy
Network taxonomy organizes products based on relationships and connections between products. For example, an online retailer that sells laptops might organize its products based on the relationships between different products related to it like laptop covers, laptop chargers, or laptop cleaners.
This taxonomy helps customers find related products and can be useful for businesses that sell products that are related to each other.
Hybrid Taxonomy
A hybrid taxonomy combines different approaches such as hierarchical and faceted taxonomies. This approach can provide the benefits of multiple approaches and can be useful for businesses with a wide range of products.
For example, a fashion products seller might use a hierarchical taxonomy to organize their products by category and a faceted taxonomy to allow customers to filter by size, color, and other attributes.
Sequential Taxonomy
Sequential taxonomy involves guiding customers through a series of questions to help them find the products they are looking for.
For instance, a cosmetics retailer might ask customers to answer questions about their skin type, skin tone, and preferred product type to help them find the right makeup products. This taxonomy can be useful for sellers with complex products or for customers who are not sure what they want.
Attribute-Value Taxonomy
This taxonomy involves organizing products based on specific attributes and values such as brand, model, and color. For example, an electronics retailer might use attribute-value taxonomy to organize its products by brands, such as Samsung, Apple, or Motorola.
This taxonomy can be useful for sellers with a large number of products and allows customers to find the products they are looking for by searching for specific attributes.
Conclusion
An effective eCommerce product taxonomy is essential for the success of any online store. With great advantages like improving the user experience, search engine optimization, and customer loyalty, it is one of the necessary features for any eCommerce website.
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However, creating a product taxonomy is not always an easy process. In fact, it can be quite challenging, especially for businesses with a large number of products or a diverse product range. To create a successful product taxonomy, businesses must carefully consider the attributes and characteristics most important to customers.
They also need to think about organizing those attributes and characteristics in a way that makes sense to the customer. Alternatively, eCommerce can opt for eCommerce product taxonomy services.
These services will help you organize your product in the most accurate way and make it easier for your potential customers to find and navigate to products they are interested in. This, in turn, leads to better user experience and customer satisfaction.
